It has been proposed in U.K. Patent Specification No. 1185047 to fit a prosthetic device over the incisor teeth of a sheep, the device being in the form of an arcuate cap which is secured over the group of teeth either before or after injury to the jaw of the sheep. The cap can be fixed in place in a number of different ways included among which is cementing. However, the cap employed provides a new incisal surface since it completely covers the upper edges of the capped teeth, or extends above such upper edges.
In practice, the incisal edges of the incisor teeth of the sheep are not normally collinear, the somewhat irregular pattern of the incisal edges being reflected by a corresponding pattern in the fibrous pad of the upper jaw. When the complete set of incisor teeth are capped to provide a new incisal edge for the lower jaw, this will, in general, not correspond to the naturally formed pattern on the fibrous pad and accordingly until the fibrous pad has accommodated itself to the incisal edge of the cap; the cropping efficiency of the animal can be impaired.
This invention seeks to avoid the disadvantages of the known device while retaining the advantages of reducing the occurrence of broken mouth in sheep and obviating the need for premature culling of animals by virtue of broken dentition(s).